"Knowing another language opens innumerable doors in terms of understanding people from diverse cultures and counties," Joy says. "Innumerable studies also tell us that learning world languages improves students' job prospects, cross-cultural understanding, vocabulary (even in their first language), and many other benefits."

Joy's job is almost entirely on the administrative side of language education. She is involved in all of the administrative aspects at CLEAR including exhibits at conferences, budget management, workshop coordination and project management.

"This allows me to work with a wide variety of people, hear a smattering of any number of different languages on any given day, learn about new places and peoples, and keep up with changes in the field of language education," she says. "I'm never bored!"